Fear of upstairs

[silverbelle763]

OMG!!! I'm going to loose my mind. We've only lived in this house for 3 months. My daughter (8) seemed fine at first. Over the past 6 weeks she has become more and more nervous about being upstairs by herself. Now she won't even go up there unless someone's with her. Any suggestions??

[KelEMcE]

I think this is common. My niece does the same thing now and then, and I have an 8 yr old who doesn't like to sleep upstairs if her sister isn't up there with her - and her sister is only 6. My bedroom is downstairs, but even if it weren't, I'm not going to bed when they do! When my oldest was 4, she would not even WALK up the stairs alone. Nothing scary had ever happened, but she was truly scared.

Personally, I see no harm in indulging her a bit. That's not to say you have to totally give in, but if you get the sense that she's truly scared and not just working you or putting off going to bed, why not go with her? If you can't go up with her right then, she'll have to wait, of course, or try it alone. Maybe a trusty friend (her stuffed animal or doll), a special magical flashlight, or leaving a light on upstairs in the hall or in her room so it's not dark up there.

If she can verbalize why she's scared, that might help. My daughter was afraid of a bad guy or a monster under her bed; my niece was afraid of the "noisy boys" in the apartment above hers. I gave my niece "magical anti-noisy boy spray" that she sprayed around her bed and her door before leaving her room each time. For my daughter, we put a stuffed toy German Shepard under her bed, who could scare off the "bad guys and monsters" - plus a shy kitty on top of her bed, who would certainly run away if there'd been anyone there.

[KelEMcE]

Oh, and I started playing soft classical music when I put my daughter to bed, so that she didn't feel so alone. I left a light on in the hallway, put a brighter nightlight in her room, and made sure she could hear us moving around downstairs for a bit. That seems to work.